ugh.

Francesca smiled a little at the frankness of the words, and shook her
head.

"Perhaps not," she said. "Who knows? Life brings strange changes when
one thinks that one knows it best."

"It has brought strange things to me," answered Lord Redin.

Then he was silent for a time. He felt the strong desire to speak out,
for no good reason or purpose, and to tell her the story of his life.
She would be horrorstruck at first. He fancied he could see the
expression which would come to her face. But he held his peace, for she
had not met him half-way, and he was ashamed of the weakness that was
upon him.

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, after a little pause. "You must have had a
strange life, and a very unhappy one. You speak of friendship as men
speak who are in earnest, because there is no other hope for them. I
know something of that."

She ceased, and her clear eyes turned sadly away from him.

"I know you do," he answered softly.

She looked at him again, and she liked him better than ever before, and
pitied him sincerely. She had discovered that with all his faults he was
not a bad man, as men go, for she did not know of that one deed of his
youth which to her would have seemed a monstrous crime of sacrilege,
beyond all forgiveness on earth or in heaven.

Then she began to speak of other things, for her own words, and his,
had gone too near her heart, and presently he left her and strolled
homeward through the sunny streets. He walked slowly and thoughtfully,
unconscious of the man in a blue jacket with silver buttons, who
followed him and watched him with keen, unwinking eyes set under heavy
brows.

But Stefanone was growing impatient, and his knife was every day a
little sharper as he whetted it thoughtfully upon a bit of smooth
oilstone which he carried in his pocket. Would the Englishman ever turn
down into some quiet street or lane where no one would be looking? And
Stefanone's square face grew thinner and his aquiline features more and
more eagle-like, till the one-eyed cobbler noticed the change, and spoke
of it.

"You are consuming yourself for some female," he said. "You have white
hair. This is a shameful thing."

But Stefanone laughed, instead of resenting the speech--a curiously
nervous laugh.

"What would you have?" he replied. "We are men, and the devil is
everywhere."

As he sat on the doorstep by the cobbler's bench, which was pushed far
forward to get the afternoon light, he took up